Library Visits
by EccentricallyYours
Summary: The first time Seamus visited her in the library, she hated to admit it, but she had been annoyed. HermioneSeamus. Oneshot. Slightly AU, takes places during 6th year.


Title: Library Visits

Rating: T

Disclaimer: Harry Potter is NOT mine. Go figure.

Summary: "The first time Seamus visited her in the library, she hated to admit it, but she had been annoyed."

Author's Note: Yeah, I've been itching to write a Hermione/Seamus fic. Sorry it is so short. First bit is from Harry's POV, then Hermione's, then Seamus. This is a one-shot. If I write more it will be a different story intended to be lengthier. Oh, and incidentally, it's slightly AU, taking place during the 6th year.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

_"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed." - Carl Jung_

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Harry had stopped dead in his tracks and stood gaping at them for a full three minutes the first time he saw them together. Which should have seemed silly, seeing as how they were all in the same house together, and ate three meals a day at the same table together, and hung out in the same common room every night together. But the only people Hermione every _really_ hung out with were him, Ron, and Ginny, that he could think of. But there they had been, her and Seamus, sitting at a back table in the library, _laughing._

He had been unable to decide whether or not to approach them. After all, they were both his friends, and he had promised to meet Hermione in the library that night, to lessen the pain of Ron and Lavender snogging quite openly in the courtyard during break earlier that day. But she wasn't alone, like he had expected. In fact, upon closer inspection, she looked a way that he hadn't seen her look for months: happy. Happy with a secret, maybe, but happy nonetheless.

Before his mind was made up on what to do, leave surreptitiously or go over to them, Seamus was up looking for a book, and she had glanced over and seen him. For a moment she looked shocked and slightly embarrassed, like a child caught in the act of stealing a cookie. But then she had grinned despite herself, and Harry understood. Smiling back, he shrugged his shoulders and walked out.

He didn't visit her in the library anymore, and she didn't ask him to.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

The first time Seamus visited her in the library, she hated to admit it, but she had been annoyed. Harry was half an hour late and she was trying to work on a particularly difficult Arithmancy essay, and Seamus was just there droning on about the upcoming Gryffindor Quidditch match, as if she really gave a damn.

Knowing now that he'd only been talking about Quidditch because it was the only thing he felt he was really knowledgable about, and he hadn't wanted to embarrass himself in front of her, she felt really guilty.

The next time it was better. Just as unexpected, but much more enjoyable. He had brought a loaf of his mother's Aran Spiosrai bread that was incredibly delicious, and had asked if she wouldn't mind helping him with his Transfiguration homework. He was a more responsive and agreeable pupil than Harry or Ron, and after awhile she found that she was rather enjoying herself.

Of course, when she learned that he had only been pretending he didn't understand it so he would have an actual excuse to be with her, she had turned red in the face and swatted him.

They were definitely an unusual couple, but that was only to someone looking on the surface. Everyone figured she and Ron would get together eventually; it wasn't only accepted, it was expected. But how different were Ron and Seamus? They both loved Quidditch more than she considered healthy, were intensely loyal, and could act like total buffoons at times. And jackasses, come to think of it.

But while Ron's only plans for the future were to follow Harry around and play Keeper for the Chudley Canons, Seamus had the attainable ambition of wanting to grow plants to aide Healers. He attributed it to the inherent love of land in the Irish. Hermione hated to admit it, but she hadn't noticed that while Neville was the star student in Herbology with herself right behind him, Seamus was a close third.

She hated to admit a lot of things when it came to Seamus.

Which perhaps was one of the reasons why she liked him. He was one of the few people who could surprise her and prove her wrong, just by coming off as so unsurprising. Each new day was just one more unexpected fact, one more revelation that put her in her place. That made it a little easier to not be with Ron. As Seamus pointed out to her once, she knew Ron so well it was as if they were already married. Life with him would be steady, sure…but predictable and possibly boring.

As Seamus also pointed out to her, everybody needed a little spontaneity.

_That_ she _didn't_ mind admitting.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

He figured the only person that beat him to appreciating Hermione as she was, frightfully brilliant, painfully rational, and naturally beautiful, was Neville. Even Harry didn't notice until maybe fifth year, and Ron still hadn't figured it out. The two male counterparts to the "Golden Trio" constantly took advantage of her without appropriate thanks, but she kept giving to them anyway. They had no idea how lucky they were.

He sure was glad Ginny and Dean were still dating when he had started pursuing Hermione. He actually accounted the last month of their relationship to himself; he figured that without his crush on Hermione to discuss on neutral grounds, they would have ended things much earlier. But that way, Ginny helped nudge Hermione in his direction, without Hermione realizing what was actually going on.

He was proud of his Transfiguration homework trick. He had sensed her irritation at his Quidditch drabble the first time he sat with her in the library, and had spent an entire Charms lesson thinking of a new, better reason to visit her there. He figured that simultaneously acknowledging her super-efficiency with schoolwork and allowing her to be in control, as she so liked, would earn him some points, which it did.

He had been extremely nervous that their first "date" outside of the library would be awkward, without the usual shelves of books surrounding them, but it had turned out to be a fantastic time. Even though it hadn't gone as planned.

What was _supposed_ to happen was Seamus would spend about an hour getting Hermione better at Quidditch (and considering how terrible she was, that wasn't saying much), and then Ginny and Dead would meet them down on the field for a two-on-two match. But after about thirty minutes they had gotten side-tracked, as they often did, and the next thing he knew Hermione was teaching him how to ice-skate on the lake she had magically frozen, and then they had lost track of time and were 45 minutes past curfew, and Filch was chasing them up the stairs and he had pulled her behind a suit of armor, both of them giggling, and then he had kissed her. And the best part was she kissed him back.

He liked to say the only reason he kissed her that first time was to get her quiet so they wouldn't get caught, but she knew better. Whenever he said this she would just smile to herself quietly and shake her head bemusedly, and the look on her face was so adorable it sent a jolt right to the very core of his being, and it took every ounce of willpower he had to keep himself from kissing her.

The reason why he brought it up so often, though, was because apparently Hermione found the strained look on his face adorable as well, and she _couldn't_ keep herself from kissing him.


End file.
